A former trader at Bear Stearns on Wall Street, Conor Horrigan knows how to assess risk. Nearly two years into his ownership of Half Full Brewery in Stamford, the entrepreneur is quick to point out the brewery's relatively pint-sized operations, which is just the way he likes them -- for now. He recently took a trip to Lagunitas Brewing Co. in Chicago, one of many beer tours he takes periodically, to learn from his fellow craft brewers. Pulling up a photo from his visit to Lagunitas on his iPhone on Wednesday, Horrigan pointed out that the brewery's tanks are much larger than those of Half Full. For him, that's OK. That's preferable, in fact.

"We won't ever grow to that size if we don't do it in a thoughtful manner," he said.

Still, Half Full has reached a milestone in its business operations that can elude many small brewers. On Wednesday, the brewery started canning one of its products, Half Full Bright Ale, and shipping it to liquor stores in Fairfield County.

30-mile radius

Horrigan wants to stay local, focusing on disseminating the majority of the product within 30 miles to stores like BevMax and Fairway. For the first 21 months of its existence, the brewery has been supplying exclusively draft beer, sold in 300 bars and restaurants in the area. Now, cans of Half Full's ale, priced between $8.99 and $9.99 per six-pack, will find their way into people's homes, picnic baskets and beach coolers. It also marks a trend in the craft beer industry, which is increasingly turning to cans rather than glass bottles to distribute its product.

"We've never done this," Horrigan said on Wednesday, indicating the noisy canning operations underway in Half Full's warehouse. "I was just joking earlier, we actually look like a professional brewery now."

Piping the ale from the brewery's tanks through an automated system, Half Full canned just under 1,000 cases on Wednesday, a process they'll repeat again in a few weeks. Again, Horrigan noted that this is "not a massive amount for other breweries," but a significant step for Half Full. If the current business is 100 percent draft, by this time next year, Horrigan expects the ratio to shift to 70 percent draft, 30 percent cans. While the exact pricing of the canned beer is decided by individual retailers, Horrigan's three existing distributors sell a case, or 24 packs, to liquor stores at a flat price of $29.98.

Canning rentals

"Now, we've reached a point where we have enough of a presence and following that we can add this as a second item," Horrigan said. "And people want this in liquor stores. So we've been able to create a pull scenario rather than a push scenario."

Horrigan is taking a relatively cautious leap into canning, renting the automated equipment by the day from Tyler Wylie, owner of Iron Heart Canning. Based in Norwalk, Wylie acts as a mobile beer canning consultant to small breweries in the Northeast. At Half Full, the work is semi-outsourced to Wylie, Horrigan said, with several of the brewery's six employees helping out.

The cost of installing an automated canning system full-time can be considerable, especially for an operation like Half Full, which produced 1,250 barrels last year, as Horrigan estimated. He did not specify the cost of renting the equipment, but another small-scale brewery, New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge, recently invested about $100,000 to install an automated canning mechanism.

"In order to make it work, renting vs. buying, we'd have to package 80 times with him (Wylie) before it would make sense to own it," Horrigan said.

Can vs. bottle

Years ago, packaging a local, craft beer in cans would have seemed like a wild choice. Cans were once considered gauche in the world of beer, denoting an inferior, overly commercial product. Eventually, enough small breweries began to adopt cans -- for one thing, their much cheaper than bottles -- that the trend became pronounced. Customers came around to the idea that locally made beer didn't have to come in a dark glass bottle.

"It was thought that cans equal boring, institutional, mass-produced beer," said Gregg Glaser, editor-in-chief of Yankee Brew News in Norwalk. "It's all turned around because there's nothing wrong with putting your product in a can. They're a great idea for craft beer, it's just the mindset that got turned around. There's a huge amount of canning in microbreweries now."

Rob Leonard, founding partner of New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge, should know. In 2004, the craft brewery started packing their beer in cans, which "totally changed the whole business," Leonard said. They chose cans primarily for cost reasons; glass bottles, plus the labels and the metal tops, were just too expensive. As both Leonard and Horrigan noted, beers fare better and have a longer shelf life in a can, untouched by spoiling sunlight. It's also more environmentally friendly to use cans, as 90 percent of the aluminum gets recycled, Leonard said.

"The only advantage a bottle has in these days is if you're in a bar fight," he said.